What you need to know to keep your online accounts safe

http://www.stavros.io/tutorials/online-security/?

by lexz0r • 13 years ago

9 13 13 years ago

Silent Circle's website is full of grammar errors and typos. The how-it-works videos don't tell you how it works and the videos are awfully cheesy.

300bps2• 13 years ago

Didn't see a lot of practical advice. For example: they say there aren't really defenses against keyloggers but that is not true. One defense to protect a web password is to inject characters into the key logger that are ignored by the browser. One method of doing this is to click in the password text box, type one character of your password then click on the background of the page and type a bunch of gibberish then repeat. The keylogger will be filled with random gibberish instead of your password.

StavrosK4• 13 years ago

Most keyloggers include the window title (and the really advanced ones take screenshots as well), so this countermeasure is easily defeated.

300bps2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure if you understood what I was saying because the window title would remain the same (i.e. the browser). You would just be clicking inside and outside of a textbox within the same browser.

As for taking a screenshot - that wouldn't help either with something meaningful like a password. Not to mention that doing screenshots totally changes the dynamic of a "key logger" and exponentially raises the amount of storage needed and makes it even more difficult to glean useful data from it.

I think you're trying to stretch to make this countermeasure "easily defeated" when it really isn't.

txutxu4• 13 years ago

Well, in my opinion, the advices are practical.

Some of them require a little bit more of research by the user, but the advices are practical all of them.

txutxu4• 13 years ago

Well all the best practices in the article, are ok, in 2006.

Nowadays there are many more treats, entry points (hint: browser setup and plugins), and more authentication methods than "passwords".

We have even evidences of major upstream compromises.

In resume: for me the article is a little bit short in scope.

StavrosK4• 13 years ago

This is meant for casual users. For power users, the advice would be "never use a computer again because you can trust NOTHING EVER".

txutxu4• 13 years ago

OK.

But that you cannot defend yourself of NSA, until you're in an enemy country or something like, does not mean, that you cannot protect yourself against all the rest of the world.

Using a master password, implies the clipboard (on average). Does anybody trust desktop browsing over linux, assuming that clipboard usage on Xorg is in some way safe? it's convenient, but not safe.

If I try to tell best-practices to a user of mine, I try to group all my experience and knowledge, before compile to user slang.

Even if for casual users, short in scope (for my personal taste).

And maybe too many prose, a more direct style maybe better to stamp on the user mind a list of best practices.

vinceguidry• 13 years ago

Yeah, those 20-character long random strings are great until you have to type them into your iPhone. And type them again. And again. And again. With your browser window open on your desktop/laptop so you can read them from LastPass/1Password/Keepass.

matthewdavis• 13 years ago

That's why I use QR codes. And offline QR code generation.

What you need to know to keep your online accounts safe

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